


thunderstorms

by angelheartbeat



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Episode: s13e10 Mac Finds His Pride, Extended Metaphors, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt, Thunderstorms, use of the f-slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 04:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16612370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: When he was a little boy, Mac was scared of thunderstorms.When he was an adult, he was only scared of the one inside himself.





	thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> my god ok i know basically all of my iasip fics bar one have been the characters Through The Years but look... look. its all i can do

When Mac was a little boy, he was scared of thunderstorms.

Great growls of sound would roll their way menacingly across the sky, and he'd shiver in his bed, squeezing his eyes tight shut like that would protect him against the wrath. He was sure that it was God, come to snatch him up and steal him away - or a chorus of demons heralding fire and fear, ready to punish him for not being good enough, not fearing God enough. He could never sleep when it was storming.

He soon got over that, or at least learned to pretend like he could fight away the thunder. What he couldn't learn was how to pluck out the shard of glass in his chest, how to clear the personal tornado that began to twist around his heart. It dug in its claws and cackled malevolently, and a shell began to form around him.

When, at the age of 12, Mac first kisses a boy, its storming.

Its Charlie - of course its Charlie, they always were too close - and they're standing in the rain, dripping wet and trying to hunt for shelter. It felt new, strange. Mac could hardly help himself. As soon as their lips touched, though, a great flash of lightning cut through the air, hitting the dumpster right behind them.

Mac took that as a warning.

Clearly, God had disapproved of him. And if God didn't love him, who did? His parents didn't ( _yestheydidyestheydidyestheydid_ he'd tell himself relentlessly, hands over his ears), his only friend was Charlie and they fought more often than not, and he had no siblings. God was all he had, and God must hate him.

He caught the flash of lightning that day, and he stuffed it down deep where it struck in time with his heart. His storm was growing. The clouds darkened each day.

So he told himself  _no more,_ and tried to ignore the thunder. But he never could sleep through the noise.

When, at the age of 17, Mac first sees two men kiss in public, he can't stop his mouth from yelling.

He hurled hateful words their way, hands curled into fists to conduct his own lightning somewhere else. The thunder was everywhere, spilling out into the air, rolling hatred towards someone else besides himself for a change. Some people laugh, some scowl. The couple just glare at him and return to their own little bubble, allowing Mac's words to bounce off, hitting himself in the face again.

He never could work out why their indifference made him feel so tiny, feel so awful and torn up inside. In retrospect, it was the storm. It was the churning self-hatred in his chest. He didn't understand how they could be so calm, how they don't have their own rain and thunder inside themselves telling them that they're bad, that God will never love them, that they don't deserve that easy happiness.

So he took that rain, and he took the electricity that crackled in his veins and burnt self loathing into his flesh, and he took those great drumrolls of thunder, and he sent them out to everyone around him, any chance he got. Anything to set himself free.

Of course it never worked. You can't clear a thunderstorm with your fists.

When, at the age of 24, Mac buys a bar with his two best friends, the storm nearly destroys that too.

It was a snap decision, almost, done on a whim with Dennis' father's credit card and sending them all spiralling into a haze of drunken glee. They were young, and they had a bar. Dennis had just graduated college, and they had a bar, and they were stupid and broke and had no idea how to run a business.

Dee nosed in - she always does, she always did - and they were all young and stupid together, until one of their patrons lurched up to the bar one day and slammed down his tankard.

He slurred at them, Mac and Dennis and Charlie, and within the incoherent mess Mac made out the word  _faggot_ , spat meaningfully in his direction, and the storm had painted his vision crimson.

He didn't remember punching the guy. He just remembered standing over him afterwards, knuckles red. Lightning crackled from those knuckles, before shooting right back into his fist, constricting his throat and whispering that the man was right, he'd seen Mac for what he really was, he knew he  _knew he knew-_

He didn't go near the bar for a week. He damn near gave away his shares, because he couldn't have anyone around who thought he was  _that_. He couldn't deal with that. He couldn't be that,  _wouldn't_ be that, because God would hate him. God did hate him. God must hate him, because God sent the storm that rages in his soul. God sent the thunder that made him shiver in his bed when he was a kid, and that made him shiver still even as an adult.

Eventually he crept back in, and everyone skirted delicately around the incident - uncharacteristically considerate. He felt like they'd seen the storm, and now they didn't want to associate with him. It took a long time for them to get back to their usual antics.

When, at the age of 29, Mac kisses a boy for the second time, it rains later that night.

It was late, dark out, and his walk to get a sandwich brought him past a gay bar. Head down. Hands in pockets. Don't look up, don't look up, and they won't think you're one of them. There was a man stood outside, cigarette between his lips, looking Mac up and down as he hurried past.

He called out, and the appreciation and the purr in his tone was enough to turn Mac's feet around, fight the electrical pull that tried to drag him further down the street. He stood for a while, took the cigarette he was offered. They smoked, and laughed, and never asked for each other's names.

Mac liked to say the man kissed him suddenly, without warning or reason, but he'd be lying. He'd known full well what would happen if he kept glancing at his arms like that, if he kept laughing too loud at his jokes and touching him for just a second too long. He wanted to test the storm, in a way - see how far he could take it before the clouds grabbed him back and stuffed his brain full of hate again. 

Almost immediately after they kissed, Mac stubbed out his cigarette. He scribbled down his number on a slip of paper, slid it into the man's pocket. And then he disappeared into the night, away from the pulsing lights of the club and back into the dark veil of denial. His moment of weakness was over. Never again would he indulge in such ungodly desires.

And indeed, as he walked home, the skies opened up and soaked him in regret. God, he was stupid. God, he hated himself. God, please forgive him.

He could chalk it up to a moment of weakness. Everyone had those. It didn't mean anything. He didn't enjoy it. It wasn't better than every time he'd been with a woman, every time he'd even had sex with a woman, it was just a few seconds of late-night kissing with a stranger outside a bar. He could deny this away. 

The next day, when he received a text ( _hey baby, remember me from outside the bar last night?)_ he blocked the number.

When, at the age of 33, Mac first has sex with a man, the storm subsides for a brief respite.

And  _God,_ what a respite it was.

To be free from regret and hatred and denial for just as long as it takes to make a big mistake was liberating. It was everything Mac wanted. It was awful, it was painful. It was magical. It was confusing. It was with Dennis, and he was drunk enough to set aside his stormclouds just long enough to bang his best friend. 

When he woke up in the morning, though, it's worse than anything he's felt before. It's the worst the storm's ever been - crackling in every limb, thundering right through his brain, rain splattering violently against the window panes of his heart. He feels fragile.

He snuck out of bed as quietly as he could, hid in his own room and prayed away the guilt. Prayed away as much of his sin as possible, hoped against all odds that God would still love him, that God wouldn't renounce him for this, that God would accept yet another slip in character. He knew he had asked God for an awful lot of second chances.

When Dennis woke up, he pretended everything was normal. He pretended like nothing happened. Dennis pretended too, but Mac could sense his judgement like he was God himself, narrowing his eyes and damning Mac straight to hell. Mac could deny this. Mac could make this right again. Mac could make this work, just as long as they never did it again.

And then they do it again.

And again, and again, until Mac can hardly write this off as a one-off mistake. This is a black mark on his record. This is a strike against his name, and he's had an awful lot of those. This is three strikes and he's out, out of Heaven, out of God's favour, out of second chances and plausible deniability and his own ability to pray himself into oblivion. This is three strikes and he's all out of people who love him, and he's worried he passed three strikes a long time ago.

The storm is close to unbearable, and he's scared that it'll eat him alive.

When, at the age of 39, Mac stumbles onto the deck of a boat and prays to God for a sign, it's storming all around him.

Waves crashed against the boat, violent and furious, and his shirt stuck to his chest, and the cross around his neck felt like it was burning, and it was as though what was inside of him had escaped into the world, was rampaging around for all to see. He's going to crash and burn - he's going to go up in flames in the middle of a thunderstorm, and his ashes will float right to Satan's door. 

He just wanted a sign. Something, anything, that could tell him if what he was feeling was so wrong, was as hideous and unsightly and disgusting as he felt. Something that would tell him whether he could even keep lying to himself. He was skating on thinner and thinner ice each day, and it was getting harder and harder to believe.

Then it came to him - he just needed to close the minds of others, and then no one could make him feel so wrecked inside, like he ached for something he couldn't have. 

But when he tried, it made everything a million times better and so much worse.

It meant he couldn't lie to himself anymore.

He might as well embrace the storm, he thought as he strolled into the brig that night. Step headfirst into the lightning, and it won't strike you a second time. The pain can only happen once.

But it kept swirling, even when he admitted it, even when he's freely saying that he  _is,_ he's  _gay_. He's gay, and there are other men who are gay and they believe that God loves them, so God must love him too, right?

But the storm kept going, both inside and out.

So he concluded that he must have been wrong. Embracing the storm just got him burned, and the clouds, if anything, had darkened. Back into the closet he went, shamefully, denying anything and everything until he could pretend like it never happened at all. He could but try.

When, at the age of 40, Mac finally admits it and doesn't take it back, the storm only lets up a little.

It felt like the right time. And he knew it was, really, could feel it in the air that it was coming. He's ready to be out, he's ready to admit it. 

In his chest, God still twists thunder around his lungs and fills them with clouds of smoke, but he can breathe a little easier now that he's out. But its still raining inside him, still eating him up inside, however much he tries to throw himself into the new lifestyle. It feels like maybe he'll never be free, like the presence of God's hatred will forever hang over his head like his own personal circle of hell.

And then, at the age of 41, Mac finds his pride.

Deep inside him, something changes, and the stormclouds finally, finally part. It clicks. He can be gay, and he can love God, and for the first time in his painful, self-loathing, God-fearing life, he feels like God loves him back. The lightning ceases its striking of his heart, leaving him blistered and burned but alive. He's soaking wet, dripping in his own denial and pain, but he's alive. He's alive, and God is cradling him like his own mother never did, and he's never felt so vulnerable and so alone and so very loved.

Maybe, just maybe, from here on out, he can stop shaking in his bed like he's still a little boy who jumps when lightning flashes.

Maybe, just maybe,  _it's okay._

**Author's Note:**

> you sick of reading the words storm, lightning, clouds and thunder yet
> 
> i dont proofread anything ever nor have i ever had a beta reader so this is 100% an incoherent mess but i finally got out some of the feelings ive had abt mac finds his pride
> 
> leave a comment if u wanna make my gay little heart smile  
> mayb follow me on tumblr perhaps @thoriffix


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